German Literature Under National Socialism

Book excerpt: Beginning with an exploration of proto-Nazi literature in the late nineteenth century and pursuing later developments up to the arrival of fully fledged National Socialist literature, the author shows the Nazi reaction against big city decadence, Marxism and pacifism. The author examines not only the literature produced inside Germany during the Nazi period, but the exile literature produced outside Germany. The final section of the book discusses the aftermath of the Nazi regime and the problems facing exiles and the reasons for the ultimate lack of resonance of antifascist exile literature in postwar Germany.